Intach organises pan-India quiz to up heritage quotient

The following article was published by Business Standard on 24 August 2014:

Spanning over 100 cities, from Leh to Mysore and from Daman to Darjeeling, INTACH is conducting for schoolchildren a big quiz competition, aimed at celebrating the country’s legacy.

“Heritage is something generally considered as a backward element in our society. We wanted to instill in our citizens values that our heritage was dynamic and our history living,” Indian National Trust for Art and Culture (INTACH) Delhi Chapter, Convener, AGK Menon told PTI.

“What better way to spread awareness than through school children,” he said.

Driven mainly by volunteers including its quiz masters, the event, which began on June 30 in Bijapur has so far covered covered 80 cities, riding on a “zero corporate sponsorship”.

Titled ‘INTACH India Heritage Quiz 2014’, the event is being executed by Xpress Minds Edutainment, with support from heritage-loving volunteers from across the country.

The competition has made inroads into big metros as well as small towns like Belgaum, Dharwad, Madurai, Machilipatnam, Kakinada and Salem in south; Nasik, Silvassa, Rajpipla, Mehsana in the west. Aligarh, Kanpur, Faridabad, Meerut in the north; and Patna, Ranchi, Varanasi, Aizawl, Balasore, Dibrugarh in the east are among other cities.

Kunal Savarakar, CEO Xpressminds, who designed the quiz format said, “the idea was to celebrate India’s cultural wealth that we are so richly endowed with and yet so ignorant about.”

“Through this quiz, without any corporate sponsorships, we have managed to reach places as far as Itanagar in Northeast, and Port Blair down south. It’s been an eye-opener for both the participants and the organisers, as to not how much we know India, but how much we don’t,” he said.

Savarakar adds, “Not just volunteers contributing, but even quiz masters are volunteering in different regions. I am only the quiz master for some of the major cities, rest is all volunteer-driven. And, they are even preparing question themselves. It is truly an India quiz.”

Talking about adding the India flavour to the event, he said, “the idea was to offer a region-based questions with highest quality. And, though students in big schools in some cities came prepared with an India-themed quiz preparation, I believe, they went back richer knowing about their city, than they otherwise would have.